Six Eleven Number 7- Cedar HWS build

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Back in November of 2014 I took a roadtrip to Norcal, and on my way South, in Salinas, I picked up a 10' Western Red Cedar 2x4, which was to comprise 4 of the 6 hull planks on what is going to be my Final hollow Cedar surfboard. The rest of the board is made from leftover Cedar planks from the other boards I built, the last one being built 12+ years ago.

It was not the lightest piece of wood I could have selected, but its beauty and character was undeniable with nearly all shades of brown, along with tan blonde with a few purple and pink hues thrown in too.

I did not take it to my table Saw until nearly September of 2015, and have been slowly building the board ever since.

I decided upon a 6'11" x 22" x 3" double wing round pin with 5 proboxes. I have had 6 other boards of this same general outline which I always called my shortboard, but which others might classify as a hybrid or a speed egg or Ugg, a 'funboard'.

My first of this general style surfboard was back in '96 and I knew then and there, I was pretty much done with pointy nose shortboards for good, back in my 20's. Now at 46, 43 at the start of the build, I wanted something to last me for the rest of my life that could paddle well, go fast, and turn hard. I weigh 210 to 220 Lbs with about 20 of that being a spare tire round the middle. Been stand up surfing since 12, and prone wave riding since 8.

Not having built a HWS in 12 years, I had 12 years to develop my wood working and problem solving skills to address the weaknesses I found in the structures of previous HWS boards. I went a bit overboard, and decided to not rush any single stage. Previous builds were done in as little as 2.5 weeks. This one is at 2+ years. I took 2.5 months shaping it, but all throughout this build there was a period of weeks in a row, where I did not even touch it.

While I am not comfortable showing the complete internal structure of this board, it is not built in the same style as most HWS are. I use 5 stringers, cut my rails out of a 1x12, taper and stack them onto the outline, building the rails square for later shaping. The pieces which go from stringer to stringer are more numerous than most builds I have seen, but I am always imaging a well placed knee in the center of a 'chamber', and then there magically appears to be a support installed there despite the added weight.

Nearly every internal peice is fiberglassed. the center stringer is two layers of cedar with 8oz fiberglass in the middle and 1.43oz on the sides, all other of the 4 stringers are glassed both sides with 1.43 oz.

The interior of the hull is glassed with 1.43oz, the interior of the hull is glassed with 1 layer, perhaps 2( can;t remember) of 1.43 oz and 1 layer of 3.7oz e cloth.

I was aiming for it to come in under 12 pounds but that became a pipe dream about 8 months ago, and expect it to finish up in the mid 14lb range, hopefully less. It is not getting a thick exterior glass job with just one 1.43 layer on the hull one on the deck with a few stomp patches, and minimal rail lap.

Which is fine, my 6'8" x 20.5" x 2 5/8" HWS now weighs 15.5 lbs having had multiple repairs, so this one will have significantly more volume and will weigh less. I have a moderately glassed foam PUPE version of the 6'8" which comes in at 10.5 lbs and I prefer the 15.5lb HWS as long as it is chesthigh+. Anything less than this and I am usually on a traditional sytle longboard anyway

I always liked heavier boards, and there is something strange about HWS, in that they do not feel as heavy underfoot as expected. Definitely not for HPSB'ers or those with a disposable mindset, but all i care about is my wave count and going fast and turning hard and pulling in when possible, and I feel the HWS is not a limiting factor for doing this.

All other HWS I built had very mild bottom contours. Either flat to a V, or a subtle triple concave. I had tried a 7'x22'x3" board with a fairly deep double to single to double a few months prior to beginning the build, and liked how engaging it felt, and decided to incorporate deeper concaves into this build.

These concaves required being built into the close tolerance blank, as the planks start out just over 3/16" thick and I try to not let them get under 1/8" thick when shaping. This desire for deeper concaves built into the close tolerance blank basically required a complete different build method than every other HWS I have built, and much of what i had learned on previous builds would be inapplicable to this build, and the new build might have design flaws in the structure that would not become apparent until failure. Much time was spent thinking how best to distribute the strength across inherent weak spots, or make the super strong parts weaker. Not sure I had the foresight to negate them all but time will tell.

I get 5 planks from a 2x4, 4 of which are bookmatches and the fifth, was put aside for making fins.

To get the 22 inch width, I needed to add ~1.5 inches to the cedar planks., I had some nice dougfir already milled to the proper thickness for some other task, and while I knew it would add weight compared to using more WRC, I always liked racing stripes.

I just glassed the deck on theis board last night, Will soon be installing the proboxes, and hope to have it ready in the next week, but this timeframe, like much of the expectations on progress on this build,could be a pipe dream.

I will add more to this thread while I finish up the board.

Please keep in mind i am well aware there is little to no love for HWS on this forum. The board is already built, shaped, and glassed. I am not looking to improve the design or build method, or teach anyone else exactly how I did it.

I built this board for me, not for anybody else, and it is not for profit, or recognition. If you see me carrying the board, please ignore me, as I do not like the attention of strangers. Thankfully, with the proliferation of the pop out asian veneered boards, a wood surfboard does not garner the attention it did a decade + ago, but pawlonia veneers do not much look like WRCedar either.

I am fully relcutant to even start this thread, but I told Huck i would 2+ years ago, and seeing his new thread about a 'hunk of wood' and his relatively quick progress on it, and my recently having glassed my own project, seeing the character of the cedar revealed when saturated with epoxy, felt I should get over it.

This pic below is about where any existing similarity with other HWS internals, as far as I know/ have seen, ends. This is the first time i used 'ribs' meaning a solid unbroken piece of wood going rail to rail.

These 4 ribs were a requirement so that i could build the desired concaves into the close tolerance blank. Each rib is two pieces of cedar sandwiched together, fiberglass in the center and on the sides so as to better keep the desired concave which is not yet present in this photo.

In retrospect, 5 ribs would have been better.

Most all my other builds had 5 parallel stringers. Some had 3. This original build style was taught to me By a now Deceased friend, back in 2002.

RIP B.K.R. and thank you.

Also like to throw aut a thanks to Drew.G. who allowed my first HWS board to be built in his home, and one C. Hundley, also deceased, who taught me how to shape, glass, and fin a PU/PE surfboard back in the mid 90's, and also that I did not want any part of the surfboard industry.
I'd Also like to throw out a thanks to one R.Q.Shaw who is allowing me use of his dilapidated shed for this build ( may the termites keep holding hands for a while longer), and also to thank every surfboard shaper/designer previous, for refining our surf craft to the point they are today so that waveriding is so damn fun and rewarding.

B.K.R bought the plans on the internet from 'some guy in Hawaii'. I do not know who sold him those plans in the late 90's, but I acknowledge I was not the first and the roots of my build method were developed by another. Perhaps someone here knows who delevoped them originally , and can give proper credit to the 5 parallel stringer, stacked tapered rail method. All I know is the original plans about the build method, were bought from 'some guy in Hawaii'

I have made many modifications to those original plans/ method in an attempt to get a more accurate end shape, and better strength/weight ratios, and attempt to negate any desire of the wood to flatten the rocker or torsionally twist the close tolerance 'blank'. I apologize for keeping much of this 'secret sauce' closer to my chest, and will not show the full internal structure, though I am sure many here can infer it form the pics of the internals that I will show.
I fear those guys who have access to CNC milling machines, sell kits, and Asia's manufacturing tendencies.

While i will never profit off my HWS's, I am selfish enough to not want others to either.

I would also prefer to be the only guy riding HWS, as one heavy wood board in today's overwhelmingly crowded lineups, is dangerous enough.

Looks beautiful! Like you, I have noticed with the proliferation of composites, veneers, and computer printed graphics, there is very little that gets much attention appearance-wise anymore. I hope to build a few more wood boards before I retire from the craft, but at my age I don't assume anything, hah! Thanks for sharing.

I stole one of your ideas for the leash loop and put my own twist onto it.

Therewill be some Bubinga and Bloodwood sharing the load of the leash loop. The bloodwood basically where the center stringer would be, bubinga on both sides. Fiberglass between all layers of wood. A little carbon too.

The actual hole, after drilling, was stuffed full with both carbon fiber and fiberglass roving, and then after curing, was redrilled smaller so the 3 layers of wood are joined together and spreading the load and the fin rope though the far end of of the roving deeper into the board.

Some Phillipine Mahogany is also used in this area outside the loop as well as some Doug fir, before it joins the rest of the WRC rails. I was unsure how this would look out when shaped, and am not sure If I am disappointed or not.

The Bubinga goes alongside the stringer and half way over the probox receptacle, which is layered offcuts of cedar that is glassed on one side, then butted upto the stringer, then glassed over and up the already glassed stringer. with some roving in the corners to comproimise the fillets spread the laod and eliminate 90 degree bends. Extreme Overkill, most likely.

The wood grain that will appear once I route into it for the proboxes, should be quite interesting on that rear box. The quad boxes receptacles are also comprised of 4 layered offcuts glassed on one side with grain at opposing angles. This proved to be so much work and so frustrating, that the thruster boxes only have two layers of wood. All these probox receptcles are adhered to the interior of the hull and sandwich the stringers and than are glassed over. Before adding the decking more supports reached upto the deck. I like a solid foot bone to fin bone connection. Each of the 5 Proboxes, will basically will have its own stringer near the middle of it.

The fin receptacle/leash loop stage only took me a few months ;) I did not curse more than a thousand
five hundred times.

I will likely add some more roving over the glass to further reinforce the Bubinga and perhaps soften the corners the leashrope will ride over at extreme angles. Not sure it is required for strength, but a few more grams is not going to hurt this battle tank.

The layers of glassed cedar comprising the fin box receptacles were taken from the planks I had glassed that comprise the hull and deck. Some of them have the e cloth and the veiling 1.43 oz cloth from the deck planks, the hull planks have just the one layer of 1.43 cloth. A wasted a bunch of offcuts and time, trying to make them too precise. Route the receptacle 1/8' off and I could route into free air and begin the mother of all curse fests, which of course is still a possibility. So I made them bigger to give me a little leeway as to positioning and toe in.

I need to do some practice cuts with some tape on the router bearing as with such a receptacle, I do not believe such an amount of epoxy round the sides of the probox, is required.

Further Shaping the hull concaves in the tail further means routing too deeply is to be avoided too as I did not leave that much on top. I might even skim some deptf off the bottom of the probox and intentionally route the receptacle shallower incase my thousand thickness measurments and estimation of how much i was going to shape from the hull, needed 1001.

Previous HWS builds revealed that where one of the outer parallel stringers met the rail, there was a weak spot. Also there is a tendency of the hull panel, then later the deck panel, to try and flatten the nose rocker. I really hate this tendency of HWS builds , so all 5 of my glassed stringers meet up in the nose and keep the original intended rocker, and keep it strong, as well as hopefully prevent/ mitigate torsional twisting while constructing the blank.

I also have to account for drainage for when water inevitably gets inside, thus the red wire under the stringers in the nose..

No previous HWS I made, did I cut out any lightening holes, but no previous HWS had fully glassed stringers either. I intentionally cut the holes asymmetrically, after the mid and outer stringers were glassed to hull 2 at a time on the rocker table. This was a little nerve racking, and the cheap hole saw kit I bought, made it worse. Avoid the cheap porter cable hole saw kit. They wobble like mad.

Each one of those hole interiors was later saturated with epoxy at least three times, to prevent absorbing moisture, and perhaps return some strength. My arthritis is acting up remembering that stage even though it was spread out over a long time. Before adding the deck panel I redid all the holes again, but made special tools to get inside the holes, with Sponge adhered to those tools. Should have done that initially. I weighed all the stringers holes I removed from hole saw, think they added upto 3/4 a pound IIRC, which does not account for the wood durned to dust, nor does it include teh holes in the 4 ribs or cross pieces either.

Cutting out tapering and stacking of the rails, is quite time consuming. Making them symmetrical and so that they do not have to bend very much to fit the rocker is not easy.

The planning of the rails so that one rail stack does not push down on the rocker any harder than the opposite rail stack, while avoiding the knots in the 1x10's, was also not easy and took me forever and much cursing and self doubt and walking away and returning with fresh eyes was required.

I never made a 3 inch thick shortboard. With this style of HWS, one has to account for how much one wants to dome the deck and how full to make the rail before putting on the deck. When building the rails mostly square it is very difficult to estimate how much wood is needed on the interior to support the deck panel adequately without too much wood to bend and clamp, or add unnecessary weight.

Every other one of my HWS builds rail imperfections issues were solved with more clamps, but this could distort the rail rocker and or twist the board, so this build I was looking to add rail stacks with minimal clamps so one layer of wood was not fighting the next layer in a different part of the board.

I did not want very thick boxy rails, but with a three inch thick board and this construction method, while trying to keep unnecessary weight down, well again it was a bit stressful and many times i had to walk away and figure out how to be sure that the rail stacks would allow me to achieve the rail I wanted, and I was not entirely sure of the rail I wanted as I have no examples of three inch thick shortboards to fondle and compare side to side.

In retrospect I would have made the top rail stack a little wider to the inside and pinched the rail a smidge more. It is pretty full and looks boxier than it feels, but those pics will come later. I was worried about doming the deck too much, just as I was worried about too much of a pinched or too boxy a rail. I was already committed to 3 inches thick at this point. thinning it out would have screwed up the foil and since the holes in the stringers were already drilled, pretty much meant no further center thinning was possible without some sort of weight adding reinforcement to the center stringers holes.

It should be a good paddler. Since I can duckdive my three inch thick 9'3"+ longboards with no issue, I am not worried about that either, and I am not getting younger so lots of volume was not going to be compromised.

Yesterday I fint tuned the hulls tail surface concaves to just above the weave, and then did a few practice runs or the router on a piece of scrap redwood. I wanted to see how little depth of the route I could get away with and still have the tangs rest on the hull lamination. I got the router bit's bearing a bit closer to the blade using a file to remove some of the radius. And basically only half the bearing is riding on the jig.

While this left enough room underneath for a thin layer of glass to swell, it might not have been enough thicker cloth, and I would up routing a smidge deeper until a razor blade in the middle of the box did not allow the box to rock and the tangs to rest on the hull lamination. I was unsure I had actually made the fin box receptacles thick enough. Fairly sure I got it right, but not 100% sure.

Then I decided to put down all the tools, and reread the probox install instructions and pretty much every thread on Sways concerning their installation. Glad I did as gold lies within.

TOday, after finding my notes as to where exactly I put the interior cedar fin box receptacles, and drawing my dots and figuring out how much toe in I think I wanted, I routed out 3 of the 5 receptacles for the proboxes today. The thrusters. I'll route the quads later.

In keeping with my undiagnosed OCD disorder, I have taken the extra steps to insure maximum strength even though WRcedar is a lot more dense than foam and the cedar receptacle inside is well reinforced to hull stringers cross pieces, and deck.

Putting the high bond green tape of the interior, then ripping it up in one direction then the other, usually pulls up a lot of the loose grain of the wood. Whether this removed wood would have soaked in enough epoxy and yeilded the same bond strength, is unknown, but I feel removing it will allow the epoxy to penetrate deeper, bond mo strongah.

I free handed the plunge router in 3 ~1/4 inch depth progressions, then only on the last last pass did I allow the bearing rid on the inside of the jug.

I did wrap the bearing in some tape to reduce the size of the hole by about 1/64" perhaps a smidge more, but after acheiving full depth on all three, removed the tape and did the leadng and trailing edges of the receptacle.

I did use a razor inside the jig before routing, to lift out the tape inside, so it would not foul the cutting edges of router bit, or perhaps fling the tape's adhesive around.

I Laid a Jig on a scrap of cardboard, then razored around it tightly removing the center, then aligned this cardboard cutout and jig right where they needed to be, then weighted the cardboard, adn removed the jig and flipped it over, spraying both hull and jig underside with 3m super 77. It strikes me that this allowed such a clean spraying of the mating surfaces, perhaps i dod not need to even lay the tape, but it should be a good visual aide when sanding flush.

I did use my router speed controller on about 7.7 of 10, as this seemed to allow the tape to not be flung off the bearing, and still have plenty of power. i was going slow anyway. 6 of 10 was able to stall the bit on the very light white piece of redwood yesterday, at about 3/8" deep passes. Glad I practiced first.

I know the proboxes no longer require sanding and wiping with acetone. I did so anyway using both 60 grit sandpaper and a dremel with precision diamond bit to remove any shiny spots. The Lip/resin dam upper portion of the proboxes got sanded perfectly flat with 320 on a piee of glass, , and then placed on upside down on the green 3m tape which was on top of, stickyside up, on the sheet of glass, then I rozored around the edges and then used a fingernail to insure the tape was well bonded the whole perimeter of the probox's resin dam. For added insurance I used some car wax on interior and exterior of insert and interiod of insert receptacle. I do not have any clay, but I removed the grub screw, and waxed it too and removed all the excess. Epoxy should not be able to bond strongly to anything with the car wax on it, and I made sure it did not get anywhere undesirable or get transferred from glove to any surface. using Q tips and some other precision cotton swabs.

I used the dremel again with a very small round carbide burr on the base of the routed receptacle to make a flange about 1.8" deep at the very bottom, and just under the glass on the inside of the hull panel.

I'll be cutting some patches of 7.5oz cloth for the bottom and some 18 inch long pieces of woven roving for wrapping the plug itself, and using the very slow System 3 clear coat resin, no pigment, no milled fibers. Hope I have enough of this resin left.

Previous FCS plugs installed in cedar tended to blow bubbles if treated like foam, so I will likley do a few saturations of the cedar before laying the patches inside, pouring in some more and then inserting the roving wrapped probox. Heck i might warm up the cedar with a hair drier beforehand as well

Looks good. Last time I set those in foam I lined the pockets with glass first. I don't even remember why now. HWS are a whole different animal, your thread is reminding me why I haven't done one in years, haha. Great thread.